


we’re beautiful (we’ll always be)

by zoeysdianetti



Category: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Pining, includes french, it gets translated later on, you don’t have to understand french tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoeysdianetti/pseuds/zoeysdianetti
Summary: So far, Zoey has been doing a pretty good job helping people when they sing to her. The Universe has noticed this and throws a new challenge at Zoey: she hears someone sing a heart song in their native language, French. Zoey doesn’t understand anything, but luckily she has Max. He took French in high school, so he can help her, right?
Relationships: Zoey Clarke & Max Richman, Zoey Clarke/Max Richman
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	we’re beautiful (we’ll always be)

**Author's Note:**

> i don’t really know when this takes place. it’s def after 8 when zoey sang to max, but also before 12 because they haven’t kissed yet

“What do you mean you’ve  _ never  _ seen the Lion King?” Max exclaims.

“I don’t know, I guess I just couldn’t wrap my head around talking animals? Bill Nye was more my thing. Facts and logic,” Zoey replies.

“Yeah but you were what, thirteen, when that started airing. What did you watch before then?”

With coffees in hand, Zoey and Max leave the Golden Gate Grind. They keep arguing, until Zoey hears music from across the street. She gestures to Max to make him shut up.

“Max, do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Zoey doesn’t answer him. If he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, it’s a heart song. She looks around, trying to locate the person causing this. Finally she sees her: a twenty-something woman dancing alone, in between other unsuspecting pedestrians. She opens her mouth and starts singing.

_ Sur les trottoirs je pense à toi _

_ Sur les boulevards je pense à toi _

_ Dans la nuit noire je pense à toi _

_ Même s'il est tard _

“What the fuck?” Zoey mumbles.

“What’s happening?” Max asks.

_ Sous les réverbères je pense à toi _

_ Dans la lumière je pense à toi _

_ Tous les hémisphères je pense à toi _

_ Sous la poussière _

“See the woman in the grey coat and bordeaux Dr. Martens?” Zoey asks. “She’s singing a heart song.”

“What is she singing?”

_ On était beau _

_ Pourtant on accélérait sans freins _

_ On s'aimait trop _

_ Pour s'aimer bien _

“I have absolutely no idea,” Zoey whispers. She’s dumbfounded. So far, people have only sung to her in English. Finding out what people’s songs mean without actually knowing the song is one thing, but without even knowing the language? That’s a whole other thing.

“Unsurprising.”

_ On était beau _

_ Souvent, quand on souriait pour rien _

_ On s'aimait trop _

_ Pour s'aimer bien _

“This time is not my lack of pop culture knowledge, I swear. She’s singing in French, I can’t understand anything.”

Max looks at Zoey wide-eyed. She turns to him.

“You took French in high school, right? Quick, write some sentences down.”

_ Je me réveille je pense à toi _

_ Encore sommeille je pense à toi _

_ Trop de soleil je pense à toi _

_ C'est plus pareil _

Zoey keeps staring at the woman dancing in the middle of the street while dictating random words she’s picking up to Max. He jots everything down in his notes app.

_ On funambule, je pense à toi _

_ On me bouscule je pense à toi _

_ Si je recule je pense à toi _

_ Je suis ridicule _

“This is unbelievable,” Zoey says. “How am I supposed to help her if I don’t even know what she’s singing?”

“You could try to talk to her,” Max suggests. He’s looking at his notes and frowning. “Or I could help you, maybe? I  _ did  _ take French in high school.” Max doesn’t mention he barely remembers how to introduce himself in French.

The woman has stopped singing and is waiting at the intersection. Zoey grabs Max’s arm and runs across the street, pulling him behind her. Behind the woman, both of them come to a stop when Zoey promptly realises she has no idea how to initiate a conversation with her. They don’t know each other and Zoey has no idea what the song meant, how could she ever casually start talking to her?

“Excuse me, miss? Do you know where we can find the Palace of Fine Arts?” Max asks. Zoey could hug him right now. Of course she didn’t have to dive in immediately, asking for directions is perfectly normal. 

In a thick French accent, the woman replies: “Sorry, I don’t live here.”

“Oh, very sorry to bother you,” Max smiles. “Are you a tourist too?”

“Sort of,” the woman shrugs.

Zoey is amazed by how easily Max can strike up a conversation with someone. She wasn’t born with the ability to talk to someone without making it weird, so she’s glad she has her best friend with her to help out.

“Are you travelling alone?” Max asks.

“Yes.”

“Oh! Would you like to join us? The Palace of Fine Arts is supposed to be beautiful!”

The woman seems to think it over and eventually says yes.

“My name is Max, this is Zoey. Who are you?”

“My name is Aurélie.”

“Nice to meet you!”

While waiting for the light to turn green, Max pulls up Google Maps and looks up the Palace of Fine Arts. He knows where it is and how to get there, but Aurélie thinks he doesn’t so he has to play the part.

“So where are you from?” Aurélie asks.

“New York,” Max says at the same time Zoey says “LA.”

“I’m from New York originally, but I met Zoey when we were both attending college in LA,” Max grins. Zoey looks at him gratefully. She feels like maybe she should just shut up and let Max figure it out for her, but then she remembers  _ he  _ didn’t hear the song.

While they’re walking, Max tries to find out a bit more about Aurélie. She’s from France, more specifically Vannes. She says she came to San Francisco to try and empty her head, but she doesn’t elaborate. Max often tries to involve Zoey in the conversation, but she can’t string together more than four words to say. When they finally reach the Palace of Fine Arts, Max takes Zoey’s empty coffee cup and nudges her toward Aurélie.

“Talk to her,” he whispers before finding a trash can for their empty cups. Zoey walks back to Aurélie and stands next to her.

“It really  _ is  _ beautiful,” Aurélie says.

“Yeah. I’m glad we got to see it,” Zoey says. “This would be a beautiful place for a wedding.”

“Oh, are you looking for a venue?” Aurélie asks. Zoey flushes bright red. Does Aurélie think she and Max are engaged?

“No, it’s just… a thought.” 

“Oh. You just seem so close, so I assumed…”

“It’s fine, don’t worry.”

Max comes back after throwing away the empty coffee cups, but stops a few feet behind Zoey and Aurélie. They’re finally talking and he doesn’t want to interrupt. Instead, he pulls out his phone and looks at the random words and half sentences in his notes again. Most of it is probably misspelled and he can’t make sense of anything. With the help of Google Translate, he translates everything to English, hoping it might help Zoey. She never has to find out he didn’t know any of the words himself.

“Max, what are you standing over there for? Come here!” Zoey calls him over.

He smiles goofily and jogs their way.

“Aurélie has to leave now, but we’re meeting again tomorrow for coffee. Do you want to join us?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Great, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Aurélie smiles. “Golden Gate Grind, right?”

Zoey nods and says goodbye to Aurélie. When she’s out of earshot, Max asks: “Did you find out anything else?”

“Not much. She liked the Palace and she thought we were engaged. That seemed to make her a bit down, so maybe her song has something to do with love trouble?”

“I translated everything you made me write down. Do you want to go over it?”

“Sure. You’re a true hero Max, thank you.”

Max just smiles. “Glad I could help.”

Back at Zoey’s apartment, Max pulls up his notes. Zoey is sitting next to him on the couch, looking over his shoulder.

“Okay so, first of all: sommeille means sleep. Trop de soleil means too much sun. I have no idea what these have to do with each other.”

“Neither do I. What else do you have?”

“Je pense à toi, I think of you.”

“That one was repeated a few times,” Zoey recalls. “Maybe it’s a love song? What else?”

“Ridicule. It means ridiculous, of course. That’s the last thing you told me to write down. Is there anything else you remember? Maybe we can try to find out what the title of the song is and look up the full lyrics.”

Zoey thinks hard, trying her best to remember anything else. “I think I heard  _ aimer? _ What does that mean?”

“Uh… I’m not sure anymore.”

“Also  _ something something beau. _ Wait, let me think.”

“Beau means beautiful,” Max says while typing  _ aimer _ into Google Translate. “Aimer means to love. It might be a love song after all.”

“On était beau!” Zoey exclaims enthusiastically. “That’s it! That’s what she sang!”

After doing another Google Translate search, Max says: “We were beautiful? This suddenly got a lot sadder. Hold on, maybe I can find the song like this.”

He types the sentence in Google and finds a song by Louane. He presses play on the YouTube video.

“Is this it?” he asks.

“Yes!” Zoey exclaims.

Max immediately googles the lyrics and translates them.

_ We were beautiful _

_ Yet we accelerated without brakes _

_ We loved each other too much _

_ To love each other well _

_ We were beautiful _

_ Often when we smiled for nothing _

_ We loved each other too much _

_ To love each other well _

“It sounds like Aurélie had a relationship that was a little  _ too _ perfect,” Max says. “The rest of the lyrics is mostly pining, thinking about the other one constanty.”

Zoey rests her chin on Max’s shoulder, reading the translation over again.

“It seems like she still really loves her ex. How am I supposed to help with that? They’re probably still in France somewhere. She hasn’t even mentioned them, I can’t randomly bring it up.”

“Hey, don’t be mad at me. Be mad at the Universe.”

Zoey looks up at the ceiling, throws her hands in the air and yells: “Screw you Universe! Why can’t you ever make anything easy?!”

Max snickers. “We’re seeing her tomorrow, right?” Zoey nods. “What if we pretend to be a couple, but we’re just a little too perfect. She already assumed we were engaged, maybe we can work with that.”

“I already told her we’re not.”

“But did you deny we’re dating?”

“Not explicitly,” Zoey shrugs. “I feel like that was implied.”

“Okay great, so we’re dating. We’ll just have to anticipate each other’s next move and react to it before it happens. Maybe show a little too much PDA, like always touching each other in some way. I think it might help her bring up what happened.”

“Max, there’s no way that’ll work.”

“Would you rather have a very awkward conversation where Aurélie notices you know something after five minutes?”

“Fair. I’ll see you tomorrow then,  _ boyfriend?” _

“I’ll pick you up,  _ girlfriend,” _ Max winks. It sends shivers down Zoey’s spine.  _ Shit. _ They haven’t even touched yet, but hearing Max call her his girlfriend really does something for Zoey.

Hand in hand, Zoey and Max walk to the Golden Gate Grind. Aurélie is already waiting for them outside.

“Are you okay with me kissing you on the cheek?” Max whispers.

Zoey nods. Max bows down and gives Zoey a quick kiss on her cheek before greeting Aurélie.

“Hi again! Did you have a good time after you left yesterday?” Zoey asks, trying to sound casual. It’s hard, because her mind is all over the place. She’s still holding Max’s hand and she can still feel his kiss linger. She hasn’t forgotten all of his love songs to her, and neither has she forgotten her own song to him. She forces herself to focus on Aurélie. If she keeps thinking of Max, she might be haunted by a French song for the rest of eternity and that’s literally the last thing she needs.

“Yeah, it was fine I guess. Nothing special.”

“What did you do?” Max asks.

“I’d rather not say. It’s kind of pathetic. What about you guys?”

“We had fun,” Max grins. God, Zoey can’t take this. He looks like a school boy, all innocent with his goofy grin. They walk in together and look at the menu. They’re lucky Autumn isn’t working today, otherwise they’d get caught in their lies about dating and not being from San Francisco.

When Max pays, he lets go of Zoey’s hand. He pays for her drink too and hands it to her. The three of them find a table by the window.

“So, what’s the deal with you guys?” Aurélie asks. This is going smoother than Zoey expected. “Are you together?”

Zoey looks at Max, preventing another blunder like yesterday when they gave wildly different answers.

“Yeah, have been for nearly three years now,” Max smiles. “Hopefully we’ll add a lot more years, I really love her.”

Zoey can’t take her eyes off Max. She’s almost certain he can see her eyes glistening with love, but she doesn’t care. For all he knows, she’s just really great at playing her part.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Zoey asks. “Or girlfriend, of course. We’re not small minded.”

“I ended things with my fiancé two weeks ago. We weren’t right for each other.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Zoey says, hoping she sounds convincing. “How come?”

“We always agreed on everything. The same favourite TV shows, the same favourite food, the same favourite colour. It seems perfect, but after a while it got  _ too _ perfect. I just wish I realised that before I said yes to his proposal,” Aurélie sighs.

“Is that why you’re here now?” Max asks.

“Yeah. I needed to get away from him and France for a while. Our honeymoon was supposed to be exploring California together. I thought doing it on my own might help me get over him, realise I don’t need him, but it did the opposite. I’m constantly thinking about him, missing him.”

Zoey looks at Max. This is going perfectly. He gives her a reassuring smile, along with a soft squeeze in her hand.

“It seems to me like you want him back. Being too perfect can’t be a reason to let someone go, especially not if you love them. I mean, look at me and Max. He knows everything about me. Every little thing I’ve ever mentioned, he remembers. I used to hate that. It’s too caring. He gives too many shits about me. But actually, it’s really sweet of him.” She turns to Max and smiles. “He’s my best friend. Of course he remembers the best way to cheer me up. Of course he remembers my favourite movies and podcasts. He’s perfect, maybe a little too perfect, but I would never want to lose him, because who else is gonna show up at my apartment door in the middle of the night with popcorn and a sappy romcom when I’m down?”

Zoey shyly looks away from Max and looks down at the table.

“What I’m saying is you should go get him back. You’re never gonna find a second one like him, you will regret losing him for the rest of your life.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Aurélie smiles. “God, it’s like you’re in my head. Thank you so much Zoey.”

“Thank the Universe. That’s what brought us together.”

Aurélie looks at Zoey funny, but smiles gratefully.

“I’m sorry, do you mind if I call Victor right now? It’s still a reasonable time in Europe now, if I wait any longer he might have gone to bed.”

“Sure, go for it!” Max cheers. Aurélie leaves a tip on the table and gets up, pulling her phone out. She smiles at Zoey and Max one last time before turning around and calling Victor.

“So, I annoy you, huh?” Max teases.

“So, you took French, huh?” Zoey counters. “Did you think I wouldn’t catch you typing everything in Google Translate last night?”

“Fair,” he grins. That stupid, innocent grin again. Like a kid in a candy store. Zoey playfully pushes Max’s face away and buries her head in her hands. She’s embarrassed and blushing. Max grabs her wrists and pulls her hands away.

“Peek-a-boo,” he laughs. “Do you want to get out of here?”

Zoey nods. Max grabs Zoey’s hand and they leave the Golden Gate Grind. It’s a good thing Zoey’s apartment is only a five minute walk away, because she doesn’t think she can take it any longer. 

The second her apartment door closes behind them, Zoey drops her bag and grabs Max’s face. It’s an impulsive decision, but she can’t help herself anymore. She gently places her lips on Max’s, tries to pull him closer to her. Max’s lips part slightly as he deepens their kiss. Zoey is very aware of his hands on her hips and back, of her own hands going through Max’s hair, of the way she has to stand on her tippy toes to reach his lips. She takes in every single detail, tries to turn this moment into a scene she can play over and over in her head. 

When she lets go, it’s not because she wants to. Honestly, she doesn’t even know why she would ever stop kissing Max. But when she looks at him, looking down at her and grinning again, she knows she needs to stop kissing him every once in a while if she wants this view.

“On est beau, right?” Max grins.

“Oh, shut up,” Zoey groans.

“Make me.”

Max doesn’t have to suggest that twice.

**Author's Note:**

> the song is on était beau by louane and it’s actually very good pls listen to it


End file.
